Pages

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Durga Puja - a Drabble

Streets blocked off to traffic. A sea of humanity. Step in and get carried along with the tide.The city awash with illuminations. Whole stories retold in lights.Pandals housing the ten-handed Goddess on every lane. Crude box like structures, or replicas of famous monuments.The frenzied beat of the dakis. The sound of conch shells being blown. The benign face of the Goddess.The tantalizing aroma of street-food. The smell of camphor and flowers. And sweaty arm-pits.A quest to visit all the pandals. Conversations and contests on which were the best.Four days of Durga Pujas in Calcutta.

____Drabble (n) - an extremely short work exactly one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity and to test the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space.